Tell You Things
by Momosportif
Summary: Just a IruHana start of relationship fic! Kakashi finds a love interest leaving his friend Iruka wondering if he might be more than a friend, but with a little help Iruka may find a love of his own. Don't own Naruto. Please enjoy and review!


Tell You Things

It was so quiet. So quiet in the tree, way up at the top, nestled securely into the branches with the village far away and dwarfed trees forming a second protection from the place he'd escaped from again and again. But he only escaped to be alone. Alone by choice instead of alone by definition of existence. The chunnin leaned against the trunk with a sigh and looked up. This was his spot. It had been for, what was it now, fifteen years. Something like that. Since he was seven. When he was seven, he had decided that his life was useless and no one would miss him if he killed himself, so he'd decided he'd throw himself off a tree. By the time he'd reached the top though, he was terrified and could do nothing but sob himself to sleep. He woke up being carried home by an ANBU officer. He didn't want to die anymore, but sometimes he did feel that no one would miss him. Then he would remember he had friends: Naruto… Kakashi… Naruto couldn't really help him now, but he could talk to Kakashi. And he did, all the time in fact, any chance he had. But Kakashi could only do so much; the only person who could help him now was himself. He sighed again, looking down between his legs to the base.

_Is that?!!…_ A distant person walked towards the trunk, a person with unmistakable silver hair. _What's he doing here?_ He leaned over the side of his branch intently. He almost shouted to him. But he wasn't alone. Iruka blinked and squinted, trying to identify… _Oh__. It's her…_ He watched the pair sit down. Kakashi pulled out his book and they sat in silence for a while. Then he thought he heard her (and it had to be her because of the sheer volume) say something and then squeal. They were engaged in some sort of tickling melee, the book was laid aside temporarily, and it ended with her crawling in between his widely spread legs and him resuming reading over her shoulder. Iruka smiled slightly. He was glad things were working out between them. That had been the one time he had listened and Kakashi had talked: when he'd fallen in love. Iruka had been shocked, Mitarashi Anko? What in the world do you see in her? It's not that he didn't like her: a lot of people thought that because they were always butting heads, but they just disagreed because of their drastically different personalities. She was a decent person, but one who could easily hurt someone accidentally and that was the last thing he wanted for Kakashi. The book had been abandoned again in order to engage in a battle of a different ilk, one that involved the lowering of Kakashi's mask and the removal of Anko's bulky overcoat. He suddenly felt painfully isolated and sat up, squeezing his coffee eyes shut as he internally fought that sliver that he had repeatedly tried to bury, the one that did have a problem with Anko, the tiny part of him that wanted to be in her place. _It's just because you're alone, and he's the only person who talks to you, and he's your friend, and he's attractive and you're mistaking your feelings of friendship and closeness for_-

"Are you okay?" He nearly fell off his broad branch in surprise. His gaze connected with the sharp dark eyes of a crouching kunoichi, her chestnut hair in a loose ponytail that allowed strands to blow across her currently concerned visage.

"Yes, yes, I-I'm fine." He felt a blush creeping across his cheeks. He looked away. "I'm fine," he repeated. "What are you doing up here anyways?" He was embarrassed and slightly territorial about this intrusion of his spot. He amended quickly, "I didn't mean to be hostile, I'm just wandering." She paused, choosing her words carefully.

"I scented," she nodded down, "_them_ and I decided to take a detour so as not to… interrupt. My dogs went around them. I have to meet up with them at the village gate. No hurry though," she grinned, flashing a canine smile identical to her younger brother's. "They've found something to chase. They'll be a while."

She was kind of… well, beautiful in a wild and… _attractive?_ way. He had never noticed Inuzuka Hana before: their paths never really crossed even though they were both chunnin, and she was a bit younger, four years to be exact, but… He felt his face warm as the blush spread across his nose along his scar. _She certainly doesn't look younger…_ He closed his eyes to prevent his gaze from wandering where it shouldn't.

"Are you sure you were telling the truth earlier? Are you sure you're okay?" His eyes snapped open to see her pale shoulder inches from his chin and he felt the inhale and exhale of her breaths. She sniffed. "I can tell, you know. People smell differently depending on their emotions." She was whispering in his ear. He could feel her lips move as she spoke. "You don't smell 'okay'." She sat back abruptly and he released the breath he'd been holding, giving way to panting as he stared, wide eyed at her. "Sorry… about… th-"

"No!"

"It's just, well, this is really embarr-"

"No!"

"See, sometimes our dog-like instinct kind of takes over and-"

"NO!" She blinked, startled at his desperate tone. He was almost laughing at the ridiculousness of this situation. "I-I- Can I talk to you?"

"Well, yes, I mean, that is what we're doing, right?"

"No," he shook his head firmly, "no, like tell you things… about-"

"How you feel?"

"Please."

"I-I-I don't see why not-"

"Thank you, Hana." He looked at her with such earnest relief, she almost let her mind slip into instinctual mode again, but resisted. "Thank you."

* * *

Anko looked up from her prey.

"You think it worked?" She peered down into Kakashi's relaxed gaze. His eyes followed hers back up to where you could barely see two green vested figures leaned towards each other intently.

"I hope so. In any case, I don't think he'll be alone anymore."


End file.
